Today I want to expand on one notebook in particular, the one I use for recording mistakes. In many ways I consider this to be my most important book, as it helps me keep a finger on the pulse of my own play. I have this notebook broken up into many different kinds of mistakes. Here I will begin with a basic overview.


Knowledge, Decisions and Execution

These three ideas are put into practice here for me. I won't bore you by going over them again, as they are discussed early in my previous blog entries (Available Here). I have the notebook divided into these three general areas (Knowledge, Decisions, and Execution). I record there how many mistakes and what percentage of mistakes are made in each area. This helps me see if I am truly improving in important ways, as I know that my mistakes should become more concentrated into the execution area if I am making the necessary improvements. As stated before, this is still because execution is both the least important and most complicated component of play. Having this very broad record of mistakes allows me to get an idea of progress at a glance because I can see both how many mistakes are being made and where they are being made.


Recording those gaps in knowledge is still the most important step here. If I lose a match because I did not know what to do at all then I mark that down and stop. Some examples of this are

Not knowing a build order through the entire game
Not knowing when to scout in a certain match-up
Not knowing what detection should be used to defend against Dts
Not knowing the proper response to a blink stalker/obs all-in.

You may notice a trend here. It's all about not knowing. If you don't KNOW then go ahead and at least admit that to yourself, write it down, and don't worry about everything else after that in that game. Focusing on one mistake at a time is crucial, as dividing up your attention is a good way to get nothing done. That still applies here when we're writing our mistakes down. Lastly, when a knowledge mistake happens, do not just write down knowledge mistake. These mistakes are very specific and unique to each match, so treat them as such. Record precisely what mistake was made so that you can come back and fix it later. This is more important with knowledge than any other type of mistake.


Decision mistakes are more difficult to identify than knowledge ones. A mistake should be recorded as a decision mistake if you would know what to do when watching from the perspective of the player, but are unable to remember that decision while in game.

Forgetting an attack timing in a build
Forgetting the proper response to an opponent's expansion timing
Forgetting whether you should be upgrading stim or combat shields first
Forgetting the proper transition timings in a build

Once more, there should be a clear pattern. Decision mistakes are the inability to access knowledge that you have in game. If I know what to do, but forget during a match, I write it down in the book and stop. This is another mistake that must be resolved before we can move on to others, so it is the only mistake that should be recorded from a game where it is made.

Execution varies enough from these that it will be covered tomorrow. After that, I hope to show you how I use all of this writing and recording together to get the picture of how I'm improving.


7-25-12 Replays:
Serioussam vs Zultar on Daybreak LE
AFIsurvive vs Zultar on Entombed Valley
Jozu vs Zultar on Entombed Valley
ArgoStrider vs Zultar on Cloud Kingdom LE
Ebi vs Zultar on Daybreak LE

Stream: http://www.twitch.tv/zultar327 Live around 10 CDT Monday through Friday
Twitter: http://twitter.com/Zultar327 @Zultar327

Edits: Minor touch up and actually added the link